“You don’t look like someone who works in IT.”
“Thanks?” she says with a laugh, raising a brow. “Not nerdy enough?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Not nearly nerdy enough.”
“Well. You don’t look like someone who does LEGOS.”
“Touche´.” I flash her a grin. “So what does IT mean exactly? Besides you being smarter than me?”
“I do cyber security and systems for a logistics company. It’s… I spend my days outsmarting digital criminals.” Poppy laughs. “I like solving problems.”
“Yeah?” I lean forward, resting my elbows on the table. “So, if I forgot the Wi-Fi password, you’d be able to save me?”
“First of all,” she says, dry as toast. “Your Wi-Fi password—MassiveBalls69—is taped to the fridge. Second, yes. I could hack your mainframe.”
Hack my mainframe?
I laugh. “Wow. Sexy.”
She grins. “What can I say? I’m the whole package.”
I pick up another piece and try to focus. “I should hire you to fix my email filters. I’m getting spam from Nigerian princesses.”
She laughs again, leaning back in the dining room chair, the tension between us easing. “Only if you promise not to walk in on me while I’m doing it.”
Why is she so fucking clever?
I would blush, but don’t want to stoop to that level.
Instead, I click a tiny green shrub onto the baseplate, glancing up at her, forcing my voice to stay neutral. “Did you leave someone behind in Florida?”
Her brow lifts. “Like—a boyfriend?”
I shrug, feigning nonchalance even though I feel anything but. “Yeah.”
She lets out a soft snort and shakes her head. “Nope. No one worth mentioning.”
No one worth mentioning.
I don’t know why those four words fill me with relief. Like a balloon inflating in my chest.
“Oh,” I say. “That’s surprising.”
“Why?” She narrows her eyes playfully. “Because I seem so emotionally available?”
“No.” I chuckle. “Because you’re smart. Gorgeous. Successful. And I assume you’re relatively normal.”
“Define normal,” she shoots back, lifting her glass of water but not drinking from it. “Because I’ve cried in the Trader Joe’s parking lot more than once when they didn’t have my favorite orange chicken.”
God, I like her.
Really, really fucking like her.
Poppy fiddles with a bag of white LEGOs, picking at the plastic. “I would never have moved had I been in a relationship, unless he was moving with me. So this is a clean slate. New city, new job. House full of hot hockey players…”
Ha! “There’s only one hot hockey player in this house.”
She grins over her glass. “You’re right. Lucaisamazing.”
